


Peace Is A Lie

by darlingargents



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Original Trilogy, Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe, Angst, M/M, Mentions of Rape, Mentions of sexual slavery, Mildly Dubious Consent, Murder, Present Tense, Sith AU, Sith!Ezra, Violence, i wrote this at 2am, no happy ending, set in the swverse but not really canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-21
Updated: 2016-09-21
Packaged: 2018-08-16 10:24:57
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,051
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8098543
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/darlingargents/pseuds/darlingargents
Summary: There’s an edge to his kiss, something dark and violent. Blood on his lips, the taste of ash on his tongue.





	

**Author's Note:**

> A couple of notes:
> 
> Unbetaed. All mistakes are mine. And while I'm fairly decent at spelling and grammar, if I left in any obvious errors, I would be massively indebted if anyone pointed it out so I could fix it :)
> 
> This fic is dark. Really dark. For some reason I took a sweet, pure pairing and made it into this disaster. So please heed the warnings in the tags. For more detailed warnings with spoilers, please check the endnotes. Also obviously this is not a healthy relationship, it's not meant to be, etc.

There’s an edge to his kiss, something dark and violent. Blood on his lips, the taste of ash on his tongue.

Luke pulls back, staring into Ezra’s eyes. Normal blue. But…

“Where were you tonight?”

Ezra shrugs. “Nowhere.” He kisses Luke again, and strides into their bedroom.

Luke stares after him for a long moment, something itching at the back of his mind — a warning bell going off in his head. He pushes it down.

He follows Ezra into the dark.

 

*

 

When Ezra fucks him that night, he takes control. Luke is used to that — they switch fairly often, and he has no reason to find this any different. But there’s something dark and angry in Ezra’s eyes, and Luke’s more than a little afraid at the violence in his hands, his body. The way his hands grip Luke’s sides verges on possession, and the force of his thrusts almost hurt. Ezra has never hurt him before, not like this.

After, he carefully touches a bruise he left on Luke’s hip. “Sorry,” he says softly, and leans down to press a light kiss to it. Luke doesn’t say anything, just rolls over and goes to sleep. Or tries to; his thoughts are spinning wildly out of control.

Something is wrong. Something bad.

 

*

 

**Jedi Murder?**

_Coruscant-Galactic Daily_ ’s homepage glares with the headline, and Luke is frozen with horror as he skims the article. A young human man, butchered — marks that could only be left by a lightsaber. Left in the lower levels of Coruscant in a garbage disposal, likely killed the previous night. He was a Coruscant resident, a teacher, and he left behind a wife. There’s picture of her — a young-looking Twi’lek, smiling, and holding hands with her husband, who’s just out of frame.

_Likely killed the previous night._

Ezra was missing last night.

Luke doesn’t want to believe it. He loves Ezra. They’d been together for years, since they were padawans, young and stupid and fooling around in a dark corner of the Jedi Temple. Now they’re adults, they live together, and they’re in love. They’d even talked about marriage, once or twice, but there was no rush — they had each other, they loved each other, they’d never leave each other anyway. They are Jedi, they understand each other — they serve the Code, or at least the parts that don’t condemn their relationship.

Or at least Luke does.

Immediately, he’s horrified at himself for thinking that. Ezra is a Jedi as well; there’s no way he could be anything else. Ezra is a Jedi, and always will be.

 

*

 

“Luke?” Ezra’s voice is soft, puzzled, as he looks down at Luke at the kitchen table. It’s dark outside, streetlights shining in the windows of their apartment. The holoprojector is up, the headline of _Coruscant-Galactic Daily_ glaring in Ezra’s direction. “What is this?”

“Sit down.” Luke is trembling, with anger and fear and adrenalin. It’s been almost two weeks since the first murder, and before an hour ago, Luke had almost been able to convince himself that it hadn’t happened at all. But he’d been wrong.

_Again_. It had happened again.

A young man murdered. By a lightsaber. Dumped in a garbage disposal.

And he hadn’t seen Ezra since the previous day.

“Luke, what is this?” Ezra sits down, shaking his dark hair out of his eyes.

“Killed by a lightsaber,” Luke says quietly.

Ezra laughs, disbelief obvious in his face. “I’m not the only one with a lightsaber on Coruscant.”

“Where were you last night?”

His laughter abruptly cuts off, and he stares at Luke, wide-eyed. “What?”

“You were gone.” Luke remembers. He’d woken up in the middle of the night and went to the window, staring down at the bright Coruscant streets through the blinds. A chill had run down his spine, and he’d shivered, but dismissed it; what could the Force have possibly been warning him about?

He feels sick at the memory. _By the Force_ , how could he have been so _stupid?_

Ezra looks almost angry now, defensive and on edge. “Luke, how could you accuse me of something like this? I’m a Jedi. You _know_ me. And I _love_ you, Luke.”

Those words — _I love you_ — send a painful shudder down Luke’s spine. Once, he’d loved hearing those words: he’d felt validated, cared for, safe. Now they send a twist of revulsion through his stomach and a cold shiver down his spine.

The relationship with the man he’d always loved. Reduced to this.

“Then tell me where you were last night.”

The silence stretches out in front of them, and Ezra closes his eyes.

“I needed to.”

And the words are like a punch to Luke’s gut. A tear wells in his eye; he rubs it away, fury building in its place. “How?” he spits, standing, and Ezra stands too. “How could you kill someone, an innocent man — you’re a Jedi!”

“Innocent?” Ezra laughs. It’s cold and cruel and like ice, and Luke doesn’t know how he missed it before: the edge of the Dark Side. “Those men were _rapists_ , Luke. They kidnapped Twi’lek and Togruta girls — some boys, too — from poor planets and sold them in slavery once they’d had their way with them. They were running an operation right out of Coruscant, and the Council wouldn’t do anything about it.”

Ezra bared his teeth, and Luke took a step back. His hand fell to his lightsaber, resting on the hilt, but he didn’t take it out; that was a line he could never uncross, and he wasn’t quite there yet. “So you decided to kill them?”

“The Council _wouldn’t_!” He snaps the words out, furious, jaw tight with rage. “I know that if I brought it to them, they’d just make some excuse about doing it legally, as if I hadn’t seen what they’d done with my own eyes. As if these men didn’t have the credits to bride their way out of anything. As if going about it legally could actually _do_ anything. The Jedi were always meant to be above the law. I did what I had to do.”

“And you had to turn to the _Dark Side_?” Luke shouts, fury rising in him like a wave. Ezra’s betrayal feels lodged inside him like a blade, sticking in his ribs and not letting him breathe properly.

Ezra’s still, now. His eyes are golden, bright in the half-light of their kitchen. “I did what I had to do.”

His lightsaber is out in a split second, the green plasma bright as his eyes. Luke brings up his blade with a split second to spare, blocking the blow that would have cut him in half. He feels what’s left of his heart shatter inside his chest as he feels the intensity and darkness of Ezra’s mind.

_(No. Ezra is gone. The boy you loved is gone.)_

Ezra swings his saber again, but Luke is expecting it this time, and blocks it easily. With one hand, he uses the Force to throw a chair at Ezra, who only bats it away like a minor annoyance. He pushes closer to Luke, and Luke feels himself losing ground as he’s forced towards the window. Ezra always had a height and weight advantage over him.

_(It had once made him feel safe, when Ezra had held him at night, whispering that there was nothing he loved more than Luke. That he’d always protect him.)_

Luke sweeps out a hand, shattering the window with vibrations in the Force, and jumps onto the sill and down onto the street a story below, landing hard and nearly turning his ankle. Ezra jumps out a second later and follows Luke as he sprints down the street. But he’s not really running; he’s stalling. Knowing what he’ll have to do if Ezra catches up to him.

_(And Luke was a Jedi, he could protect himself, but it still felt like a promise of love. It had felt like something beautiful.)_

Ezra catches up to him in an alley, only a few blocks away. Above them, speeders race through the air, shining light down on them — Coruscant, the planet that never sleeps — as Ezra advances slowly on Luke. He waits, lightsaber out, hand steady. The Force flows through him, protecting him, guiding him. He doesn’t have to open his eyes to block Ezra’s first blow.

_(The very first time they’d met, they’d sparred at the request of their masters. And Ezra had ended up pinned down, Luke kneeling on his chest. For a moment, he’d still been in competitive mode, baring his teeth, but then his face relaxed.)_

Blow after blow, sparks fly. Scorch marks build up against the ground and the sides of buildings, neither of them hitting the other or gaining any ground. They know each other so well, so intimately, know what moves the other will make before they make them — it’s nearly as balanced a fight as is possible.

_(From under Luke, Ezra had smiled, face cheerful and bright. “I’m Ezra, by the way. Nice to meet you.”)_

Until one of them slips up, and everyone slips up eventually. Luke leaves himself open for a split second — he’s tired, he’s afraid, he’s heartbroken, and emotion doesn’t go well with the Force — and Ezra knocks Luke’s lightsaber out of his hand. It deactivates as it hits the ground, and Luke is pinned up against a wall by the Force and Ezra’s saber is at his throat within seconds.

_(“Hi,” Luke had said, voice a little higher than he was comfortable with. “I’m Luke.”)_

“You don’t have to do this,” Luke says, voice low, as Ezra stares over the green blade at him. Ezra’s eyes are still glowing, golden as sunbeams; if Luke didn’t know what it meant, the darkness it signified, he would have thought the colour to be beautiful.

_(“Nice to meet you,” Ezra had said again, and Luke had helped him up. “What do you think of Coruscant? You live here?”)_

“I love you,” Luke says, desperate. His voice is scratching in his throat, his heart is tearing in his chest. “Please, Ezra — don’t.” He’s begging, pleading. But what he’s really saying is so much harder _. Please don’t make me do this._ If the Force has any mercy, it’ll take the choice from him right now — end his life at Ezra’s blade.

_(“Yeah,” Luke had said. “I can… show you around? If you’d like.”)_

“I have to,” says Ezra. And Luke can see it in his eyes. No struggle. No hint of fear or regret. Luke closes his eyes, and holds out his hand to the side.

_(“I’d like that.” Ezra’s smile was like a sun. “Thanks.”)_

His lightsaber flies into his hand. He presses the hilt against Ezra’s stomach.

_(“Don’t mention it.”)_

He ignites the blade.

Ezra’s eyes widen, the gold fading as his life fades in the Force. He falls back, dropping his lightsaber, which rolls and deactivates as he collapses to the ground, gasping his final breaths. Luke stands still, lightsaber in his hands, for a long moment before he deactivates it and clips it back on his belt. In the distance, he can hear a police speeder as he kneels down next to Ezra, who is dragging in a shaking breath.

“Luke?” he says softly, and Luke leans over him, touching the side of his face. There’s no hint of gold in his eyes; only fear, and pain. “What did I do?”

“I’m sorry,” Luke says. “I’m so, so sorry, my love.”

“Luke?” he says again, and Luke leans down to press a kiss against his lips. He stays there, holding back his tears, until the life goes out of Ezra’s body completely. Then he pulls away, and stands.

Over the body of the man he had loved.

He reaches out, and pulls Ezra’s lightsaber off the ground and into his hand. He hesitates a moment before clipping it onto his belt. One day… one day he’d be glad he’d taken it. Right now it hurts, hurts like nothing he’s ever felt before, and he can’t imagine a day when it doesn’t hurt anymore. He closes his eyes, forcing himself not to cry; _not yet_.

Then he turns and walks away into the light of the street, leaving the darkness of the alley behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Detailed warnings, in order:
> 
>   * Dubious consent: Ezra gets a little bit violent during sex. Nothing very serious happens, Ezra apologizes after, sort of, and the scene is pretty short (and non-explicit).
>   * Murder/very mild gore: Luke reads a space!newspaper article describing a murder. The man was killed with a lightsaber and his body was found in a garbage disposal. (Do they even have garbage disposals in the SWVerse? We may never know) A similar murder is mentioned in the next scene.
>   * Rape, sexual slavery, murder: Ezra's excuse for the murders is that the men he killed were rapists and human traffickers.
>   * Violence: Fight scene, not especially violent but it's there.
>   * Murder: (MASSIVE ENDING SPOILER) Luke kills Ezra by stabbing him with his lightsaber.
> 



End file.
